Do you believe that the big bang really happend if it didn't what really happend?
Look at it this way when atoms of the same material are compresses together to form larger masses of the said material the mass can only reach a curtain amount before becoming unstable and splitting (A nuclear explosion) now imagine this happening on a universal scale, Take a black hole it draws in all matter and as it reachs the sigularity it is atomised and compounded in the matter that was sucked in before hand and once the mass reach critical imagine the energy released in that atomic chain reaction
As an atheist, I believe the universe happened for no reason some 13 thousand million years ago. The Big Bang Theory makes the most sense to me, as opposed to God "creating" the universe. I cannot believe in a God. If God created the universe, my natural response is to ask who or what created God. The understanding and nature of the universe and how is became to be is beyond human comprehnsion at our time of evolution. Perhaps in a few million years, if humans are still around, I believe we will have a better understanding of our place in the vastness that is the universe.
"On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody..."
Originally posted by RobbieJess: The understanding and nature of the universe and how is became to be is beyond human comprehnsion at our time of evolution. Perhaps in a few million years, if humans are still around, I believe we will have a better understanding of our place in the vastness that is the universe.
That's one of the most sensible statements about the Universe I've seen on these boards!
Originally posted by RobbieJess: If God created the universe, my natural response is to ask who or what created God.
Easy - perhaps he evolved
Seriously, its easy to build a thought experiment where we build an intelligent toaster - a few generations down the line it thinks "I cannot have been created because I am complex, and if something more complex than me existed, surely something more complex than that must have created it, and so on ad infinitum."
Originally posted by crumbledust: [QUOTE]Originally posted by RobbieJess: If God created the universe, my natural response is to ask who or what created God.
Easy - perhaps he evolved
QUOTE]
I think you are correct. Humans used to believe in many Gods, some still do, but as we have evolved so has our notion of a god. We used to worship the sun and moon and animals but as we have evolved alongside the things we have moved to a more human type God. Don't get me wrong, I say we, I mean Christians. I dont know what the other religions believe so no death threats please.
We certainly know that our universe exists, however, this knowledge alone has not satisfied mankind's quest for further understanding. Our curiosity has led us to question our place in this universe and furthermore, the place of the universe itself. Throughout time we have asked ourselves these questions: How did our universe begin? How old is our universe? How did matter come to exist? Obviously, these are not simple questions and throughout our brief history on this planet much time and effort has been spent looking for some clue. Yet, after all this energy has been expended, much of what we know is still only speculation. But I will say this if there was not huge bang explain how the universe is expanding?
____(OO=[II]=OO)___ (O=0000=O)
Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? ...He's a mile away and you've got his shoes.
Originally posted by rogershoes: I think you are correct. Humans used to believe in many Gods, some still do, but as we have evolved so has our notion of a god. We used to worship the sun and moon and animals but as we have evolved alongside the things we have moved to a more human type God. Don't get me wrong, I say we, I mean Christians. I dont know what the other religions believe so no death threats please.
Why do you believe that believing in a Christian God is more evolved than worshipping the Sun and Moon? After all, to primitive peoples the Sun was guaranteed to appear every day, it brought warmth and light and helped food to grow, while the Moon, on occasions, brought a little light during the Sun's absence. This is a far more tangible and 'realistic' form of worship than more abstract, and on all evidence, absent and imaginary 'Creator' in whatever religion adheres to one. I can't see any objective criteria or a form of measuring device which will gauge any evolutionary advancement to have taken place.
_____________________________ “I am, thank God, an atheist” - Luis Buñuel
The problem of a big bang is what led to the conditions preceding the event. As far as I can believe the universe is one of an infinite number with many different dimensions. The event which we refer to as the big bang may have been a coming together of two or several "membranes" which are probably still moving, perhaps because of their unevenness this may account for the accelerating universe. No god is needed for two universes colliding and producing a third three dimensional space.
But 'time' is part of the universe and was therefore created with it. To say 'before the big bang' doesn't make sense because there wasn't a moment before it in 'time' for something to take place.
_____________________________ “I am, thank God, an atheist” - Luis Buñuel
Originally posted by Flooper: But how can it 'expand' when it is infinite?
It isn't infinite, very large but not infinite.
quote:
And if it is expanding, what is outside it for it to expand into?
The universe essentially creates its own space as it expands. There is no outside.
quote:
And if it is infinite, how can it get smaller again (Big Crunch)?
As I say it isn't infinite. The big crunch (which on present evidence is not certain) is merely a product of gravitational force pulling all the matter back together. However, since it seems that there may not be enough matter for this to happen then expansion forever seems to be the fate - The "big freeze" when all the Universe's material is so dispersed that it will just cool and die.
No, I'm afraid what you've got there is a hypothesis, not a theory. A hypothesis is the predicted answer to a question or problem, based on some information and insight but incomplete. Once there is established (repeated) observable evidence it will become a theory.
Then, if it lasts for a very long time without any exceptions being observed, it becomes a law, such as the Laws of Thermodynamics.
That's the scientific usage anyway.
Please don't take offense. I am an obsessive teacher.
Originally posted by elfuente: HA! A perfect opportunity!
No, I'm afraid what you've got there is a hypothesis, not a theory. A hypothesis is the predicted answer to a question or problem, based on some information and insight but incomplete. Once there is established (repeated) observable evidence it will become a theory.
Actually I am surprised that no-one has yet mentioned that the Big Bang although a rather simple theory actually encompasses a large set of hypothetical models. These models of the Universe's true origins are constantly being modified, deleted and added as new evidence is gathered and deciphered.
Originally posted by Joobs: ...These models of the Universe's true origins are constantly being modified, deleted and added as new evidence is gathered and deciphered.
Exactly! And this is what makes science a powerful tool for understanding nature. Rule number one is "All knowledge is tentative, subject to further observation." No real scientist should ever say that they have discovered the absolute truth.
Einstein once said that he would consider his life's work to be a complete failure if all of his theories and ideas were not someday replaced by something better.
These days, way too often scientists forget Rule Number One.
Originally posted by elfuente: Rule number one is "All knowledge is tentative, subject to further observation." No real scientist should ever say that they have discovered the absolute truth. These days, way too often scientists forget Rule Number One.
I see your point and I think you're right (although this is branching out on the subject here), but I would have to add 'So do most people', including some heavy-thinking atheists I have known.
When you get right down to it, the God or No God question often comes down to semantics, or perhaps definitions. Could I any longer believe in an old man in the sky creating and monitoring the universe? Of course not. But I ask myself this question: Is there a certain orderliness about the universe that, if I study it enough, I can depend upon to be pretty consistent? The answer is yes. And the more I study the details, and have a deep understanding even partly based upon observation about how the universe operates - how DNA works to produce proteins, how Newton predicted the relative positions of planets and moons to within seconds, centuries into the future (and then spent the rest of his life writing incomprehensible religious tracts), how atoms and smaller particles are seen doing crazier things every day and how a lot of this was predicted as much as a century ago - the more I find that this orderliness is importatnt in my personal cosmology or spirituality or any of a million other names people use for such things. In order to go much further with this idea words become useless as I enter my zen-like state where no symbols apply (as the great jazz bassist Charlie Mingus once said, "You got to get it in your soul..."), but there need be no inconsistencies.
So is "God" just another word for this orderliness, at least for me? Why not? It doesn't make me uncomfortable, nor does it tie me to anybody's traditions. Frankly it just doesn't matter. But Einstein and Max Planck and some others did think along those lines.
Now I mostly came to where I am on the above ideas on my own over several decades of study and contemplation, etc. But today a lot of people are taking up the subject of reconciling science and spirituality. The great Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson (father of the science of sociobiology) has written extensively about it. Charles H. Townes, Nobel laureate for having invented the laser as well as a graduate of my own small university, has done so as well. Just this past summer the Dalai Lama's lastest book was published, called "The Universe in a Single Atom", in a similar vein. It is not an obscure line of thinking anymore.
One last thought: I think a lot of the confusion among the world's humans is caused by being unable to think without symbols, by which I mostly mean words. I think that people who live in direct contact with nature, like the few undisturbed hunter-gatherer cultures left on Earth, may have a difficult life in some ways but I seriously doubt that they suffer much from many of the cognitive/emotional pathologies that seem to be almost universal in "civilized" cultures. I suspect that little babies, before they learn language, are able to see some things more clearly than most adults do. But this ability is lost when everything has to have a name. Don't get me wrong, language is an important tool, and humans are not the only species that have it, but I think we'd be better off if we were not so dependent on it.
Thanks for giving me a cue to write this. I've been meaning to do it for some time.
I suspect that little babies, before they learn language, are able to see some things more clearly than most adults do. But this ability is lost when everything has to have a name. Don't get me wrong, language is an important tool, and humans are not the only species that have it, but I think we'd be better off if we were not so dependent on it.
little babies, before they learn language, perceive the world in part objects - they do not recognise their own hand in front of their face, or connect each hand to the other - and as an arena of extremely primitive emotions -feed or die. the process of integration is one of naming, sorting, ordering. schizophrenia is a condition of fragmentation, part objects and primitive emotions - it is not a happy condition and i've yet to come across a sufferer who felt in any way enriched in their lives by this condition.
What I wrote about little babies was a suspicion of mine. I wouldn't even call it a hypothesis. But it does have a lot of background in all of the child development courses I took to become a teacher, as well as many years of observation, combined with my own ideas about symbolic thought.
But as long as we're talking about conclusions reached through clinical observation, it might be a good idea to repeat the most basic rule of science. That all knowledge is tentative, pending further observations. Nobody has an absolute truth to tell.
Originally posted by elfuente: We're talking about two very different things.
What I wrote about little babies was a suspicion of mine. I wouldn't even call it a hypothesis. But it does have a lot of background in all of the child development courses I took to become a teacher, as well as many years of observation, combined with my own ideas about symbolic thought.
i'm sorry, you will have to be more specific about what you mean when you say :
"I suspect that little babies, before they learn language, are able to see some things more clearly than most adults do."
I think that total dependence on symbolic thought (thinking only in words, at least most of the time) puts limits on what we can understand. As an example, I was saying that before babies learn language (words for everything), there may be some aspects of human nature that are more clear to them, and that this ability may be lost as dependence upon language for thought as well as communication takes over the mind. Not trying to usurp Maslow. I think I made it clear that this suspicion, as I put it, is not a scientifically supported view. On the other hand, I am also implying, at least, that even science has its limits and that understanding those limits makes it more powerful as a way of understanding this crazy universe in which we live.
I am not even remotely suggesting a new paradigm for psychotherapy.
